


Where I Can't Follow

by Rosage



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Adopted Sibling Relationship, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Black Eagles Route, Fire Emblem: Three Houses Black Eagles Route Spoilers, Gen, Minor Ferdinand von Aegir/Hubert von Vestra, Mortality, Platonic Relationships, Post-Black Eagles Route (Fire Emblem: Three Houses), referenced medical procedure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:13:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23480752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosage/pseuds/Rosage
Summary: His mother used to tell a story: Edelgard learning to crawl while Ferdinand, a whole two months older, rolled onto his stomach and wailed at her retreating feet, unsure how to follow.He still isn’t sure.
Relationships: Ferdinand von Aegir & Edelgard von Hresvelg
Comments: 8
Kudos: 63





	Where I Can't Follow

**Author's Note:**

> This is a prequel of sorts to [To a Brighter Dawn](https://archiveofourown.org/works/22556101), which focuses on Edelgard’s perspective.

Edelgard brushes a fly off of a folder before opening it. “When you suggested meeting in the gardens, I did not expect so much paperwork,” she says.

Buzzing in indignation, the fly circles back to drone around Ferdinand’s head. It does not deter his forced grin as he sets out his own work.

“There is no rest for those in our position. It is simply a shame to waste a beautiful summer day,” he says.

Who knows how much fresh air she will get before she is squirreled away in some private facility? He bounces his knee under the tea table, set with documents rather than doilies, and watches her lift her teacup with her usual grace. Only evidence that she has swallowed—ginger tea, for vigor—lets him begin his reading.

Eliminating loopholes from the tax code takes his attention for a time. If his father contributed nothing else, his boasting over breakfast provided Ferdinand with easy targets. The rest, he and Edelgard must pick out of the fine print and debate with verbal tweezers.

As they work, he watches the knot in her forehead tighten. Are such tedious details unbearable when one counts their remaining hours? Is that why one takes an axe to the whole system, fighting on below the falling rubble?

When Edelgard closes her fist around the bug, Ferdinand scrapes his chair across the stone. “There is nothing like a little exercise to clear the mind,” he says. He holds out an elbow that she does not take as she rises. Though he frowns at her half-empty cup, he falls into step behind her.

“It is like having a louder Hubert,” Edelgard muses.

“What is?”  
  
“You, a pace behind me, your arms folded primly behind your back.”

Ferdinand drops his hands, conscious of their weight and torn between a half dozen retorts. He loses his chance when she asks his opinion on a trellis. They debate ideal garden layouts until she halts, causing him to stumble a hair shy of her back.

“Oh, look at those violets,” she says. The vivid blossoms make her pale eyes look watery in comparison. He paces around her.

“The hedges could use some work,” he says, crossing the walkway to run a hand over an uneven edge.

“For someone on a stroll, you don’t seem very relaxed.” She strides on regardless, not meandering enough to stroll, either.

They reach an orchard of dangling fruit, ripe enough to be on the brink of falling to mush. “You know, I have read that people who eat fruit every day live longer,” he says. Was there not some mountaintop variety fabled to extend one’s lifespan with a single bite? Could Hubert’s network follow up on the rumor?

Of course Hubert has already done so. Likely years ago, while Ferdinand fought for attention in class, or expanded the monastery’s tea selection.

Tension coils around his throat, strangling him. “You should rest your feet,” he blurts. “Too much exercise can be bad for the—”

“That’s enough, Ferdinand. You don’t actually know any of the medical details, do you?”

“What medical details could you be referencing?”

The tree’s shade swallows her as she joins him, leaf-shaped shadows patterning her pinched brow. “Dancing around the subject does not seem to be doing us any favors. Besides which, it’s unlike you.”

“Forgive me. Hubert forbade me from…” _From making it about me_. “From wasting your time inquiring after information it is not pertinent for me to know.” His lips purse. Edelgard tilts her chin.  
  
“You do what Hubert says now?”

“Well, no, not really ever, no. But I did not wish to…” _To pester you with presumptions, as I have for years_. “To add to your burdens. Positive thinking is half of recovery, you know.” Manuela might have told him that, once, while he was too dazzled by her presence to listen.

“Are you a seasoned healer now? Have you seen my charts, or lived in my body? Please, trust that I am doing what is necessary.”

Her high shoulders and the hand on her hip are all too familiar, the stance of one too proud for pity. It is not pity that prickles beneath his skin, down his fingers, causing him to wipe them over the tree bark.

During those family breakfasts, his mother used to tell a story from the palace nursery: Edelgard learning to crawl while Ferdinand, a whole two months older, rolled onto his stomach and wailed at her retreating feet, unsure how to follow. The tale always came before some important hurdle, a ball or test or tournament, and it made his father’s eyes bulge while Ferdinand stared at his plate.

And then there was his image of them in their final hours, wrinkled and perhaps too feeble to go before their people, but with scrolls of their accomplishments long enough to unfurl out the door. In their younger days he hoped his would trail farther, but regardless, between the two lists would be everything needed for a peaceful and prosperous world.

It is too late to describe all of this, now that he realizes it was never on her mind.

Nevertheless, he is stuck in another time when he replies, “You are one to speak of amateur doctoring. Do you recall our sixth winter, when I fell ill? You dragged me outside to dig up a garden in search of some medicinal ingredient. Not that we found more than bugs.” Their sheen had distracted him from his ailment, back when there was little difference between a jewel and a jewel beetle, no sense people would suffer for the former.

Her face remains screwed up, but it rearranges into a softer formation. “How do you remember all of this? I can’t even imagine being so young.”

“A true noble has perfect memory,” he says, hoping it lands as a joke. She does not smile. He struggles not to swallow. “I suppose it seemed important at the time.”

Perhaps that will read as the joke. Instead, it is his turn to shield himself from pity, stretching to reach into the branches and inspect a fruit.

“I didn’t say it wasn’t important,” she says, her voice strange and quiet, a mollifying lie. He snaps the fruit off the branch.

“Ah, well,” he says to close the topic. Fruit in hand, he waves past the trees in the direction they came from, where flowerbeds span every hue. “I dare say, for a garden we ravaged, it is flourishing beautifully.”

“That’s very true.” She does not take the bait to turn back. “You know, I asked Hubert to tell you because confessing these things is difficult. Now that you know, we should be able to discuss it frankly.”

Something on which he has always prided himself. He spins the fruit around and around. “This procedure… is it safe?”

“To the best of our knowledge. My only concern is if it will work. At least the first brave volunteer has made a complete recovery.” That makes her smile too brightly for him to parse, even as he murmurs his congratulations.

 _If it will work_. A claw seized his insides when Hubert told him how long Edelgard has to live, should the procedure not go as planned. _We both know she can outshine all estimation_ , Hubert said, to which Ferdinand tried to smile, even as a second claw took a vice grip: knowing Hubert swore his whole life to her service.

Both claws clamp down at once. “Please, let me go with you.”

 _Do not leave my reach yet again_.

Her brow smoothes as it arches, a canvas for the dappled light. “I need someone I trust to stay and run everything in my absence. All of Fódlan will be relying on you. Hubert shall ensure this affair remains safe and secret.”

Yes, Hubert will care for her—but nobody will care for him, or try to lift her spirits. But if it is Hubert’s role to give everything to his loved ones, Ferdinand cannot let himself forget the broader picture, the continent full of people seeking stability.

“Of course. I will perform my duties to the utmost. You need not worry about anything beyond recovering,” he says. Her lips quirk.

“There is no need to look so dour. After all, this is your chance to prove you can run everything better than I can.”

Sticky juice seeps down his glove, reminding him of the stolen fruit. “Please do not joke about that. I…” He tries to ease his grip, but it does nothing for what squeezes his innards. “I owe you an apology. A thousand apologies. All those years—”

“What’s done is done, Ferdinand. Just walk beside me from now on. That is all I can ask of a friend.”

She turns to continue their walk. He loosens his clutch, releasing the fruit for the birds, and hurries to step with her.


End file.
